HIGH SCHOOL SOFTBALL: Little Tigers rally past Raiders

PRINCETON — Every once in a while a team can show up to the field expecting a breather and an actual softball game will break out instead.

That’s exactly what happened yesterday as Princeton needed a six run rally in the fifth to break a 5-5 tie and go on to defeat Pennington 11-6.

To be sure, the Little Tigers did not fire both barrels at the Red Raiders from the outset as Princeton head coach Dave Boehm chose to start freshman pitcher Julia Tarantino instead of number one starter Sarah Eisenach and sat his best hitter, centerfielder Marisa Gonzalez, who was nursing a sore shoulder.

Still, as a class “B” prep school, Pennington generally has its hands full against its larger public competitors under any circumstances but showed no signs of that yesterday, banging out 11 hits and forcing Boehm to make a pitching change in the fifth when the Raiders rallied for three runs to tie the game.

“A win is a win, is a win,” Boehm said after his team’s hard fought ninth victory of the season. “No matter how difficult we try to make it on ourselves. I think we let down a little bit. Maybe it was because we had the big win over Hamilton (Wednesday.) I don’t know.”

The biggest thorn in Princeton’s side was Pennington leadoff hitter Jess Ratner, who led off the game with a triple and went four for four with four runs scored.

Ratner is a converted centerfielder and something of a softball oddity: a left handed shortstop. And believe it or not, up until yesterday she had been in a batting slump. But neither starter Tarantino, nor reliever Eisenach were able to figure out how to get her out.

“I’ve had a rough year at the plate,” the Red Raiders’ strong armed shortstop said of her hitting. “I haven’t been able to keep my eye on the ball. We’ve seen good pitching all year and both of these pitchers were good. I guess I was just seeing it a little bit better and was able to put a little better contact on it. I think I just needed to slow it down in my head a little bit.”

The Tigers were not without their own potent leadoff hitter as shortstop Hannah Gutierrez had no trouble taking up the slack for the missing Gonzalez, pounding out four hits in five at bats, including a double and a triple. They also got production off the bench as Katie Kantor pinch hit in the fifth and got two hits and an RBI and scored a run.

Princeton found itself in a fight from the outset as Pennington took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Ratner tripled and scored.. The Tigers answered with two in the bottom of the inning on a leadoff double by Gutierrez and a pair of Raider errors.

After Pennington added another solo run in the third on back to back singles by Ratner and Caroline Morano and a sac fly by Krystyn Green, Princeton began to pull away with two more runs in the bottom of the third and another run in the fourth.

The Raiders would not roll over however, and rallied for three runs in the fifth, on four consecutive hits, to tie the game. Ratner and Morano set the table with back to back singles. Jesse Landis drove in a run with a single and Green forced Boehm to the bullpen when she tripled in two more.

Princeton settled the matter half an inning later when it brought 11 batters to the plate and scored six runs on seven hits, a walk and an error.

“This was definitely our best game at the plate this year,” Pennington head coach Holly Jones said of her team’s effort. “It was important for us in terms of confidence. They came back with their stud pitcher and while we couldn’t make up the runs the girls were able to stand toe to toe with her.

“Even though they beat us every year, we always come back here to play because their coach (Boehm) is a class act. He plays it to win but he doesn’t go out there to try to grind us into dust.”